chicagoland-dpocc

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We’ve updated our mission and added a vision! Chicagoland DPOCC is proud to uplift disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people of color through advocacy, education, and culture. Our new vision centers pride, unity, and connection. Learn more: chicagolanddpocc.wordpress.com 💜

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The #ResourceMap Project helps #BIPOC #disabled people and allies in #Chicagoland find #inclusive, #accessible, and culturally affirming places. Explore the map, browse the database, or suggest a resource to add. Let’s build a stronger, more connected #community together!

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GivingTuesday is December 3, 2024. Are you ready?

#GivingTuesday is December 3, 2024. Are you ready? Learn more on how you can support Chicagoland DPOCC on Giving Tuesday 2024

Greetings,  #GivingTuesday is coming up on December 3, 2024! For over a decade, this day has brought together generous individuals like you worldwide to raise funds, volunteer together, and create change in your community.  In the past, you’ve shown dedication to our organization by contributing to the Chicagoland Disabled People of Color Coalition through the UIC – DPOCC Fund. You can continue…

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Project Sidewalk: Planning Accessible Trips to the Polls (11/1/2024

Project Sidewalk: Planning Accessible Trips to the Polls Friday, November 1, 2024 from 12pm - 1pm CT Link to Project Sidewalk Webinar: https://go.uic.edu/ProjectSidewalk_AccessVoting_2024 

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Chicagoland Disabled People of Color Coalition Public Meeting and Game Day (8-30-2024)

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2024 Accessible Juneteenth Press Release

Chicagoland Disabled People of Color Coalition, UIC Disability Cultural Center, and the Institute on Disability and Human Development will host their fourth annual Accessible Juneteenth celebration on Tuesday, June 18th, 2024 from 4pm to 7:30pm.

Subject: 2024 Accessible Juneteenth For immediate release  Chicagoland Disabled People of Color Coalition, UIC Disability Cultural Center, and the Institute on Disability and Human Development will host their fourth annual Accessible Juneteenth celebration on Tuesday, June 18th, 2024 from 4pm to 7:30pm. The event would not be possible without support from Cook It Mama, Raising Cane’s,…

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#CripSex Pride Talks Series - Spring 2024

Miss us? We miss you too! And we're ready to bring you all some moar #CripSexPride Talks. The #CripSex Pride Talks series are a series of 1 hour discussions where we explore topics of disability, sexuality, and gender identity.

Link to video below: http://www.tiktok.com/@chicagolanddpocc/video/7354435324153482527?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7258392258511324715 Miss us? We miss you too! And we’re ready to bring you all some moar #CripSexPride Talks. The #CripSex Pride Talks series are a series of 1 hour discussions where we explore topics of disability, sexuality, and gender identity. If you have…

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Chicagoland DPOCC Giving Tuesday 2023 Announcement

Support the growth of @chidpocc for this #GivingTuesday by sharing the video and post, joining Chicagoland DPOCC, or contributing to the UIC DPOCC Fund at https://ahs.uic.edu/alumni/give-to-ahs. We thank you for your continued support! #fyp #disability

Happy Tuesday everyone, We are participating in our fourth Giving Tuesday since the start of our organization! We appreciate your continued support of Chicagoland DPOCC events and advocacy campaigns, and as we head into 2024, we look forward to providing our communities with social events, our annual events, our advocacy campaigns for the year, and more! There are three ways you can support…

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Call for #DisabledIAM Chicago Story Map Submissions

#DisabledIAM is back and ready to put stories of #Chicago #Disabled people on the map! To learn more about this exciting opportunity, or to sign up to be on the Chicago story map, visit: https://forms.gle/DDfrvWpamFiHBMec9

Welcome to Part II of #DisabledIAM; we’re back and cooking up something great!For this edition of Disabled I AM, we are creating a Chicago story map where people can click on each Chicago ward and read narratives of Chicago disabled people. The story map will illustrate the need to weave disability pride, disability acceptance, equitable accessibility and inclusion into each ward. It will also…

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Geraldine Lawhorn

Geraldine "Jerrie" Lawhorn (1916-2016) is an activist, musician, and educator. She was the first Black deafblind person to earn a college degree in the United States.

Lawhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio to musician parents and primarily raised in Chicago. She began losing her sight at age 8, and fully lost it by age 12. Her school gave her some accommodations, like Braille, but were not fully equipped to teach her and she suffered from bullying and ableist discrimination. She began creative writing, and her published stories earned her some acclaim.

Lawhorn graduated with honors and took a correspondence course in short-story writing from Columbia University, with braille material provided by the Hadley Institute for the Blind. She also took part in an experiment that gave her one of the first seeing-eye dogs, Blondie.

At 19, Jerrie completely lost her hearing.

A determined and creative woman, she started writing plays. She tried to go to college, but was denied scholarships, so she took private lessons in theater arts. She studied creative writing, diction, public speaking, acting, and piano, that last by feeling the vibrations.

Eventually, she was admitted to the American Conservatory of Music. She performed for the USO during World War II and volunteered with the Red Cross.

In 1946, Lawhorn and her mother moved to Queens, New York City, where she became involved in stage shows. She performed at Carnegie Recital Hall and began creating one-woman shows. Quickly becoming active in the community, Lawhorn took lessons in swimming, ceramics, and dancing. She also continued her piano lessons, and she began to study at the New York College of Music.

In 1967, she returned to Chicago to become an instructor at the Hadley School for the Blind, teaching a course on poetry and another on independent living. She continued being active in the deafblind and elderly communities and giving speeches.

In 1983, at 67 years of age, Lawhorn received her bachelor's degree; this had been a lifelong dream of hers stymied by circumstances. In the University Without Walls program, she received a bachelor's in the rehabilitation of deafblind adults from Northeastern Illinois University. She is only the sixth deafblind person in the United States to graduate from college, and the first African-American deafblind person to do so.

Lawhorn received a letter from President Reagan congratulating her accomplishments. She spoke to huge crowds and on television. She was awarded Winnetka Teacher of the Year and was inducted into the Disabled Persons Hall of Fame. When she died in Chicago, she had lived her life as a joyous, optimistic, independent woman who accomplished all her goals despite any obstacles--disability, distance, or money.

"I enjoy what I get and I don't worry about the rest"

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday signed a law providing full disability benefits to Chicago police officers and firefighters struck by COVID-19 before vaccines were available, presiding over an emotional statehouse ceremony which marked the end of a financial struggle for responders including the brother of Comptroller Susana Mendoza.

The Act-of-Duty Law, HB3162, ensures disability benefits of 75% of salary plus health insurance for anyone unable to work after contracting the coronavirus from March 9, 2020, when the flare-up intensified in Illinois, until June 30, 2021. The law grants them the presumption that they picked up the illness on the job.

Pritzker said after COVID-19′s arrival in early 2020, police, fire and medical personnel were both a line of defense and a lifeline.

“Our first responders were key to our national response, transporting infected patients to hospitals, disbursing masks and testing kits or providing care to those in distress…,” Pritzker said. “But even with social distancing, masks and mitigations in place, many of our first responders became infected with COVID-19.”

Mendoza’s brother, 58-year-old police Det. Joaquin Mendoza, was a veteran officer who worked the midnight shift. With no spouse or children, the comptroller said work was his only focus. In November 2020, when the city canceled days off, he worked 17 straight days, woke up one morning with a cough and two days later was rushed to the hospital with COVID-19.

He moved in with his sister and her family and since then, he’s had five strokes and lost both kidneys, requiring thrice-weekly dialysis. But the Policeman’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago denied his claim for full disability because there was no proof that he contracted the virus on the job. The board also denied Officer Diana Cordova-Nestad.

“This has been the most hellacious experience…,” Mendoza said. “I don’t want any police officers to feel that their only recourse is to recognize that they’re worth more dead than alive and decide to eat a bullet because they don’t want to deal with this. … I know it sounds dramatic, but it’s real.”

Mendoza said she know of about 20 others who will benefit from the law — after her brother and Cordova-Nestad were denied, no one else sought benefits.

“It’s a small universe… so you’re not talking about opening up the floodgates,” she said.

Joaquin Mendoza had planned to attend the bill signing but underwent surgery again on Tuesday and remains hospitalized.

“He told me that maybe it had to happen… because he’s the only one with a sister who knows how to navigate this crazy system and can right the wrong for brothers and sisters on the force,” the Comptroller said.

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To the guy who pushed me almost off the platform @ Harold Wash because you’re insecure about your looks. I forgive you but that shit hurt.

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Today’s disabled character of the day is Doctor Isidore Latham from Chicago Med, who is autistic

Requested by Anon

[Image Description: Photo of Ato Essandoh playing Doctor Isidore Latham. He is wearing a white doctor coat, light blue undershirt, a stethoscope over his shoulders, and a red tie with white dots and orange stripes.]

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July is Disability Pride Month and BIPOC Mental Health Month! (I didn't realize the second one so I apologize for that)

More info under the cut:

It's impossible to fit the incredibly diverse range of the disabled community and experience into one image, but I think the phrase, "nothing about us, without us," rings true across the board. That all disabled people should have their agency and voice protected and respected. That we should all have our choice on how to live our lives and the accomodations we want and need to make it happen. That our voices should be at the forefront of any movement for our well-being.

I settled on a design of hands reaching/raised in celebration, so I focused on hand-related limb differences which I hopefully did justice. I also used a rainbow color scheme to represent an overlap from Lgbt+ pride month since there is overlap between our communities, but also, while the 'July is Gay Wrath Month' jokes are cool I guess, disabled people, especially disabled/mentally ill BIPOC, need support just as much as anyone else. I mean, seriously, disability rights isn't even talked about enough to have brands doing performative activism for it.

So let's try to make this a good month for these discussions. If you're not disabled, try to take a learning perspective, and send love to disabled and BIPOC creators. Happy pride, and remember: you are worthy. Never apologize for your existence.

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Disabled POC face a unique combination of racism+ableism in reaction to their disability.

I’m more likely to get the cops called on me for bringing my service dog into a shop than a white person with a service dog.

I’m often labeled aggressive and violent when advocating for myself, while white people are more likely to be dismissed as a frustration or a nuisance.

Disabled people of color are more likely to be viewed as a threat whereas white disabled people are more likely to be viewed as weak and pitiful.

While all disabled people, regardless of race, are going to face medical neglect/mistreatment, disabled POC will face additional neglect due to racial bias in healthcare.

In fact, POC are more likely to *become* disabled due to medical negligence than a white person.

My experiences with ableism are largely impacted by race in a way that white disabled people don’t face when experiencing ableism.

[Image ID: White text in a Galaxy background reads If you: Derail my posts; are an “aspie”; run a sh/ed blog; are under 16; are a TERF; think cripplepunk is for mental disabilities; think that autism isn’t a disorder; are pro-transabled, trace, transage, etc; are pro-map or pro-zoo; are a transmed; want to completely demedicalize autism, I will probably block or mock you. End ID]

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saw this elsewhere and it resonated with me